Taking the unconventional route

A sense of relief swept over me after I'd hit the 'send' button.  It had taken exactly six days of agonizing, four and half hours of writing and two hours of rereading and editing my document. I had started, deleted, started again..... and deleted. By day six all I had was one disjointed paragraph. I knew what I wanted and needed to write but it was just not happening.  Then I had an idea - start with the conclusion and work my way to the beginning; I did, and the next few writing hours were smooth - everything flowed like a fountain. Then I switched off and let the work sit. When I came back later, I picked up from where I'd left, edited and sent the document.

This was the second time I had found myself going off the conventional path to get my story going.  It first happened about three months ago with an ongoing writing project that had had me going in circles for a very long a while. Then one day, determined to get something written, I started writing the conclusion. The flow that followed was amazing and ideas just kept coming and falling into place.  My progress  with the project has been good since. 

In both instances, I realized that starting at the end was like opening a tap that let out ideas that were in there crying to be expressed; it also created some mind space for other ideas to start forming.  Why then did it take six days for me to resort to this magical flow opener last week? Convention, I guess.

Sometimes following convention is good and sometimes it is limiting. I have witnessed situations where things got delayed, important decisions were not made and opportunities were missed just because ‘this is the way we have always done it’ or ‘that’s not the way it’s done’.

If you are having a hard time doing something the conventional way, try the unconventional-it might just get you moving.

Copyright ? Colleta 2015